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Humiliation
or Dignity:
Regional
Conflicts in the
Global Village
By
Evelin
G. Lindner
Dr. psychol., Dr. med., University of
Oslo, Norway, Institute of Psychology
TFF
associate
July 16, 2002
Lindner, Evelin Gerda (2002). Humiliation or dignity:
Regional conflicts in the Global Village. In Journal
of Mental Health, Psychosocial Work and Counselling in
Areas of Armed Conflict, forthcoming.
Abstract. Often
regional conflicts are treated as if they are placed in a
vacuum, independent of their environment. This paper
attempts to put regional conflict regions into the
perspective of a globalising world. It is suggested that
feelings of humiliation play a central role in this
process. Human rights ideals extend dignity to all
humankind and prohibit humiliating people as lesser
beings. Human rights ideals thus define high goals and
consequently create intense feelings of humiliation when
violated. Every local conflict is inscribed into the
global debate as to how the global village will look like
in the future: will human rights reign, or will elites
keep underlings in a humiliating position? Expressions
that are central to this discourse are discussed in this
paper, such as 'protecting my people', 'freedom',
'peace', 'stability', as well as 'war', 'enemies',
'friends', 'terrorists', 'soldiers', and
'police'.
Keywords:
egalisation, globalisation, human rights,
humiliation, reactive devaluation, regional conflict.
Humiliation: the force that
creates rifts
This paper attempts to convey conclusions drawn from
four years of social psychological research (1), combined
with more than twenty years of therapeutic experience.
From 1984-1987 I was a psychological counsellor at the
American University in Cairo, and from 1987-1991 I had my
own private practice. I offered counselling in English,
French, German, Norwegian, and, after some years, also in
Egyptian-Arabic. My clients came from diverse cultural
backgrounds, many from the expatriate community in Cairo,
such as Americans, Europeans, Scandinavians,
Palestinians, and citizens of other African countries, as
well as from the local community, both Western-oriented,
and traditionally-oriented Egyptians. Part of my work was
culture-counselling, meaning that foreign
companies working in Egypt asked me for my support in
understanding Egyptian culture, Arab culture, and Islam.
Before coming to Egypt, from 1974-1984, I studied and
worked in New Zealand, China, Thailand, Malaysia, Israel,
West Africa, USA, Germany, and Norway, as a student of
both psychology and of medicine.
Already as a schoolgirl I was interested in the
world's cultures and languages and I eventually learned
to handle around 12 languages, among them the key
languages of the world. My aim was to become part of
other cultures, not 'visit' 'them'. I wanted to develop a
gut feeling about how people in different cultures define
life and death, conflict and peace, love and hate, and
how they look at 'others'.
More than 25 years of learning how to be a global
citizen have taught me that human beings are less divided
and different than believed by people who are residents
in one country and visit others as tourists, for
business, diplomacy, or fieldwork. As long as you visit
others, or live in expatriate ghettos, you stay outside.
Yet, there is a growing number of people, who, like me,
are currently developing a global or at least multi-local
identity and become citizens of the world. For me it was
often a painful process. Renouncing old yearnings and
beliefs, and building a global identity not only
theoretically, but also in practice, is hard. It is like
building a ship while at sea.
I was aided, however, by my growing intuition that
basically all human beings yearn for recognition and
respect. The withdrawal or denial of recognition and
respect is experienced as humiliation. Humiliation, I
think, is the strongest force that creates rifts between
people and breaks down relationships (Lindner, 2001).
Thus the desire for recognition unites us human beings.
This desire is universal and can serve as a platform for
contact and cooperation. Many of the rifts that we can
observe stem from a universal phenomenon, namely the
humiliation that is felt when recognition and respect is
lacking. I do not believe that ethnic, religious, or
cultural differences create rifts by themselves. On the
contrary, diversity can be a source of mutual enrichment.
However, diversity is enriching only as long as it is
embedded within relationships that are characterised by
respect. When respect and recognition are failing, those
who feel victimised are prone to highlight differences.
They do this in order to justify rifts that were caused
by humiliation.
I began developing this intuition already when I
started working as a clinical psychologist in Germany
(1980-1984) with individuals and families. My experience
indicated that humiliation is of crucial importance in
human relations, both as act and as experience (cf. Vogel
& Lazare, 1990).
What is experienced as humiliation? What happens when
people feel humiliated? When is humiliation established
as a feeling? What does humiliation lead to? Which
experiences of justice, honour, dignity, respect and
self-respect are connected with the feeling of being
humiliated? How is humiliation perceived and responded to
in different cultures? What role does humiliation play in
aggression? What can be done to overcome the violent
effects of humiliation? Where can I observe cases of
humiliation? If humiliation played a role after World War
I for Germany, is humiliation just as relevant in more
recent cases of war and genocide, such as Rwanda,
Somalia, Cambodia, and so on?
Humiliation means the enforced lowering of a person or
group, a process of subjugation that damages or strips
away their pride, honour or dignity. To be humiliated is
to be placed, against your will and often in a deeply
hurtful way, in a situation that is greatly inferior to
what you feel you should expect. Humiliation entails
demeaning treatment that transgresses established
expectations. It may involve acts of force, including
violent force. At its heart is the idea of pinning down,
putting down or holding to the ground. Indeed, one of the
defining characteristics of humiliation as a process is
that the victim is forced into passivity, acted upon,
made helpless. However, the role of the victim is not
necessarily always unambiguous. A victim may feel
humiliated in the absence of any deliberately humiliating
act: as a result of misunderstandings, or as a result of
personal and cultural differences concerning norms about
what respectful treatment ought to entail. A 'victim' may
even invent a story of humiliation in order to manoeuvre
another party into the role of a loathsome
perpetrator.
People react in different ways to being treated in
humiliating ways. Some just become depressed, some get
openly angry, and others hide their anger and plan
revenge. The person who plans for revenge may become the
leader of a movement.
Furthermore, a perpetrator might want to commit
humiliation but not succeed, and a benefactor might
humiliate while trying to do good. A third party might
observe victims who do not see themselves as such, or
fail to see victims in cases where they do exist.
Finally, humiliation may be sought instead of despised
(2).
Globalisation
Every news programme in the world's television
channels starts with a turning globe. People all over the
world are constantly kept aware of the fact that we are
all inhabitants of planet earth. None of our ancestors
had this view. We have become aware of the fact that we
live in a global village. This awareness is moving
the frontiers that used to run between groups.
Human beings have a tendency to differentiate
in-groups (us) from out-groups (them). The
idea of the global village changes relations
between us and them, for example between
us Americans and you Europeans,
Russians, or Chinese. The term global
village indicates that a unifying process is taking
place; one single large unit is formed of several
smaller, formerly separated units. The rifts that used to
separate us from them are affected by
globalisation and its unifying force.
When we make a distinction between us and
them, we are creating moral boundaries (cf. Optow,
1995). 'Individuals or groups within our moral boundaries
are seen as deserving of the same fair, moral treatment
as we deserve. Individuals or groups outside these
boundaries are seen as undeserving of this same
treatment,' (Coleman, 2000, p. 118).
A whole wealth of social-psychological research
relates to the phenomenon of in- and out-group
categorisations. The famous Robbers' Cave experiment by
Muzafer Sherif (1988) involved boys in a summer camp: The
boys were split into two groups engaging in competitive
activities with conflicting goals (for example, zero sum
games such as football). Hostility between these groups
evolved astonishingly fast and almost automatically.
Experiments by Tzeng & Jackson (1994) confirm the
same dynamics also for adults. This is not a matter of
conflicting goals. For example, schoolboys were entirely
arbitrarily assigned to two groups and asked to allocate
money to others; they favoured their in-group even under
such minimal circumstances.
All these experiments feed into Social Identity
theory, which is a hotly discussed field. Why is the
in-group favoured? A Somali nomad would explain to the
social psychologists that in a dangerous environment it
would be suicidal to not be part of a strong in-group for
protection. Many Somalis owe their lives to
clan-affiliation; when fleeing, they can count on
clan-members they never met before for help wherever they
stray. However, many would also admit, that the opposite
is also true, namely that overly rigid in-group
demarcations perpetuate the very danger they aim to
protect against.
This becomes clear at points of transition: Muusa Bihi
Cabdi, a former Somali and Somaliland military leader
whom I interviewed, professed that his heart was pounding
when he flew to Addis Ababa for peace negotiations for
the first time. He described how his whole body
'expected' that the Ethiopians would kill him upon
arrival. Instead, they offered him tea! He could not
believe it. If his fear had taken over, he would have
missed the experience that fault lines are perhaps not as
eternal as his body told him; they are movable. And
globalisation is a strong moving force for such fault
lines; globalisation currently creates one large unit
from many smaller ones.
Admittedly, the creation of larger units is not new;
big empires have been formed from smaller units in the
course of human history. But today there is one element
that is profoundly new and makes this a historic turning
point. It is the fact that humankind is in the process of
understanding that the planet earth is limited, and not
expandable. In the past, empires were held together by
strong centres and their counter position to the rest of
the world, a world that for ages had no clear limits in
the minds of its inhabitants. But now the global
village is held together by an increasing awareness
of the minuteness of the globe and its interdependence.
'We may have all come on different ships, but we're in
the same boat now', Martin Luther King said, and this
describes the current state of the world. If one country
starts a nuclear war with it's neighbour, the whole
planet is at risk. The idea that we all are in the same
boat, makes us one single in-group. All concepts, ideas,
and feelings that put others into out-groups lose
validity and are increasingly outdated.
Clearly, the planet was never anything else but
precisely this small planet in a vast universe. It is not
the planet that has changed. What is new, however, is
that humankind has understood this. Humankind was aided
by a long tradition of tool-making that ultimately lead
to astronauts being able to take pictures from space, to
airplanes shrinking distances between the continents, and
communication technology making networks such as the
Internet possible. All this is part of what we call
globalisation, and we could label it as being the benign
part of it. We can imagine a global village with its
populace happily living together, not having other
'villages' to worry about anymore, in other words, no
out-groups anymore. However, there is a question, and the
question is, how will this global village be
structured? Will there be lesser beings, 'slaves' and
underlings at the bottom of the global village's
pyramid of power, and an elite ruling from the top?
Today, the global champions of the world are the United
States. Will they and their allies rule and the others be
second class underlings? Or will the human rights message
be heard that calls for 'egalisation' in addition to
globalisation?
Egalisation
I use the word egalisation as opposed to
creating hierarchies that lead to feelings of
humiliation. Egalisation refers to a process that results
in equal dignity, equal chances and enabling environments
for all. The term egalisation is meant to avoid claiming
that everybody should become equal and that there should
be no differences between people. Egalisation is intended
to rather highlight equal dignity, even in the face of a
functional hierarchy. For example: the pilot of a plane
is making the decisions in the air and not the
passengers, that is functional hierarchy. But the
passengers are treated as welcome guests. Egality can
coexist with functional hierarchy that regards all
participants as possessing equal dignity; egality cannot
coexist, though, with hierarchy that defines some people
as lesser beings.
In one vision of the future of the global
village, some people are less and others more
valuable. In a second vision, all people deserve the same
respect and equal chances.
Since both visions are sometimes extremely close to
each other, magnifying glasses are necessary to find out
where a person or group is standing. The pilot of the
plane is the boss in the air, and it is difficult to find
out whether he thinks that the passengers are lesser
beings as compared to him, or equal in dignity and worth.
It is only the way in which he gives orders and the
framing of his words that gives away his vision. It is
precisely therefore that the actions of the world's
top-dogs are currently so scrutinised, particularly by
those of lesser resources.
Every person who at present inhabits the globe is
categorised according to her power rank within the world
order and how she deals with this. A travelling American,
European, Japanese politician or business man, as well as
local elites, are scrutinised with this magnifying glass
by the rest. People want to know: Are these elites
planning to dominate the global village, or their region?
Will they treat the rest arrogantly as lesser beings or
not? Are these people taking the human rights ideals they
claim they believe in seriously? Are they humble? Or are
they throwing their weight around? Do they include us in
a common decision making process? Or are they trying to
exploit us for their own gain? Do we really get the
enabling environment that human rights promise us? Or are
these promises merely hypocritical?
According to my view, the broad majority of the
inhabitants of the non-Western parts of the planet would
like to participate in the quality of life the West
offers. The disadvantaged cannot but yearn for it, while
many local elites overindulge in the West's luxury goods.
Human rights are ideals that represent an invitation.
They state that everybody is entitled to quality of life,
to a dignified life. The disadvantaged of the world feel
indeed invited. However, they fear that the invitation is
not serious. And they feel humiliated by what they think
is hypocrisy. Confronted with such accusations, elites,
on the other side, feel as humiliated. They feel
humiliated by the lack of thankfulness and recognition
they perceive for the benevolent and generous leadership
they either indeed provide, or see themselves as
providing.
The two visions for the
global village
Frontiers that divided the world in several villages
may be removed so as to form one unified global
village with equal dignity for all citizens. This is
one vision of the future global village. In other
words, the global village could be a place where
everybody enjoys equal dignity regardless of race,
gender, religion, colour, material wealth and other
status markers. As pointed out above, the crucial point
would not so much be equality, but equal dignity and
dignifying living conditions to all, something that would
subsequently also further equality. This vision of a
global village is represented by the human rights
vision.
The other vision of the global village
describes a society divided in hierarchical layers. It
becomes a place of exploitation, where masters take
advantage of lesser beings and assign lesser value to
underlings. Formerly independent cultures existing side
by side, would then be transformed into a world where the
rich trump the rest. This vision resembles those social
structures in human history within which rulers believed
that gods had instated them and given them the right to
dominate the rest. That rest would then be deemed as of
lesser value. Status would not merely signify that some
people are more recognised than others. It would be made
essential: every human being would be assigned a higher
or lesser amount of human value according to his or her
status level in the pyramid of power.
These two visions are at the core of current global
and local processes. The present formation of the
global village is characterised by many
transitions that illustrate this. For example, words such
as enemies, wars, and soldiers, as
well as words such as they and us, are
words stemming from times when several villages inhabited
the globe. These words lose their anchoring as soon as
people conceive of the globe as one single village. Then
we are in one boat, there are no imperial
enemies anymore threatening from outside
because there is no outside anymore. Likewise there is no
they anymore because there is only one single
us. That is, the word enemy that signifies
people threatening us from outside loses
its function together with the disappearance of the
outside, as do words such as wars and
soldiers. The only sentence that fits the reality
of a village, including the global village, would
be, We are all neighbours; some of us are
good neighbours, some are bad neighbours,
and in order to safeguard social peace we need police
[not anymore soldiers to defend against enemies in
wars]. This sentence fits, because a village usually
comprises good and bad neighbours, while enemies
traditionally have their place outside of the village's
boundaries, as have soldiers and wars. And a village
enjoys peace when all inhabitants get along without
resorting to violence; polarisations into friends
on one side and enemies on the other are not
helpful for long-term peace, because they indicate that
bad neighbours actually are not only bad but
outsiders.
In the course of the past months we witnessed a
historic transition, away from the word enemy to
the word terrorist, a transition that illuminates
how language adapts to new realities. Terrorists are
inner enemies. They represent the very bad
neighbour, the specific subgroup within the category
labelled enemy that can occur inside. We
witness the disappearance of enemies in the sense
of people attacking from outside. A global
village can by definition not have enemies in
the traditional sense; it can only harbour inner
enemies or terrorists. And to safeguard social
peace within the global village police is
essential, such as peace keepers and peace enforcers.
What is obsolete is the traditional soldier who
left home to reap national and personal glory, fame, and
triumph. Or, when traditional Rwandan aristocratic
warriors sat together in the evenings - and I got vivid
descriptions of this - they chanted their "names of
glory"; central to a warrior's glory was the number of
enemies he had killed. A modern member of a peace keeping
force would be reprimanded if he or she boasted in the
same way of having caused the death of human beings.
However, in daily life we still observe that words
such as enemies, war, they, and
us are used widely. The question arises: why and
by whom? Are people who use such words merely sluggish in
adapting their vocabulary to new realities? In other
words, are inexperienced at best, or fools at worst? Or,
do those who use such words want to signal something very
significant, namely that they would indeed like to split
the global village in us and them?
Not anymore in a horizontal way between villages as
before, but in a vertical way, in hierarchical levels of
those up and those down?
At the core of these questions is therefore the issue
of globalisation and egalisation. Human rights indicate
that globalisation should be combined with egalisation.
But old Realpolitik indicates that a pyramid of power
could be implemented in the global village. Two
very different scenarios are thus possible, one that
combines globalisation with egalisation and another that
does not.
In the first case national interest would
include concern for the well-being of all humankind, in
the second case national interest would mean
defending or conquering the master's throne, or at least
a position as high up as possible in the global
village's pyramid of power. In the first case leaders
who needed to protect their people against terror,
would perceive the security and well-being of their
people as being embedded in the security and well-being
of humankind. Such leaders would put the emphasis on
fighting for, namely for global cohesion. In
contrast, in the second case, the term protecting my
people would mean exclusion, fighting against,
namely against enemies, whose evil motivations
would be seen as stemming from nothing but their evil
nature. Humiliation would be felt by all potential
underlings at any attempt by top-dogs to realise the
vision of a global village as an exploitative
pyramid of power. Humiliation would likewise be felt by
top-dogs when discovering that their leadership is not
unequivocally welcome.
Globalisation without
Egalisation?
What do the two visions for the future of the
global village entail? Whoever fancies the first
vision of a hierarchical global village where
top-dogs exploit underdogs, may want to try to become a
top-dog. There will be top-dogs at the very global level:
the members of a world superpower elite; there will also
be top-dogs at the regional or local level, in a local
hierarchy. Local hierarchies would serve as mandarins for
the global top-dog, and help keep the global hierarchy in
place. This was the traditional strategy in empires;
rulers associated themselves with intermediary classes of
aids. These aids would have an own interest in keeping
this order because they also profited from exploiting
their underlings. Often these aids were formerly
independent local lords who at some point in history were
subjugated by a stronger centralising force.
The global village would in this case comprise
local tyrants who ally themselves to a global ruler in
order to exploit the rest. The global superpower would
support those tyrants, and vice versa, and regional
conflicts would be manipulated and fanned in this
spirit.
Humiliation would be present everywhere in such a
context. Underlings would be systematically humiliated;
this would be seen as necessary strategy to maintain the
system. Many underlings would feel humiliated, while
rulers would emphasise their benevolence and feel
humiliated by lack of reverence. However, even more
importantly, humiliation would be employed for the
age-old power-keeping strategy of 'divide and rule'.
'Divide and rule' is a strategy that works best when the
fear of humiliation is used as active agent. The strategy
is used by a third party that wants to rule and pitches
two other parties at each others' throats by telling each
of them that the other is about to humiliate them. The
third party reaps the victory after the two others have
weakened each other. Like in the following example.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's
National Security Adviser, describes such a 'divide and
rule' strategy. The Soviet Union was decisively weakened
by being 'aided' into fearing humiliation from the
Mujahadeen in Afghanistan. The former director of the
CIA, Robert Gates (1996), states in his memoirs that
American intelligence services began to aid the
Mujahadeen six months before the Soviet intervention,
contrary to the official version that the Soviet
intervention preceded US involvement. Zbigniew Brzezinski
is asked in an interview by the Le Nouvel Observateur
(1998) whether he regrets to have lured the Soviet Union
into a trap by helping the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.
Brzezinski responds, 'Regret what? That secret operation
was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the
Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret
it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the
border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the
opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War.
Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war
unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought
about the demoralization and finally the break-up of the
Soviet empire' (Le Nouvel Observateur, 1998, p. 1).
Brzezinski is then asked, "And neither do you regret
having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given
arms and advice to future terrorists?" He replies, 'What
is most important to the history of the world? The
Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some
stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe
and the end of the cold war?' (p. 1). Thus, Moslems and
Soviets were set up against each other in order to
destroy each other and provide the third party, the
United States, with the victory. The Mujahadeen believed
they had to avert cultural, religious, and national
humiliation by the Soviet Union who, however, was rather
drawn in because of the US involvement; Afghanistan was
used as a ram bock without being aware of it. The Soviet
Union was lured because their Cold War enemy, the United
States, were hiding behind a battleground that was so
insignificant that nuclear might was inapplicable and at
the same time so difficult that conventional warfare was
ineffective, thus indeed bringing about Vietnam-like
demoralisation. The United States triumphed.
Many people in the United States are deeply committed
to human rights ideals and put their weight behind them;
after all, the American declaration of independence is
part of the historical foundation of human rights ideals.
Thus, American triumph entails the potential to further
the triumph of human rights. In contrast, a global
village built as hierarchical pyramid of power would
have to endure humiliation in a multitude of ways.
Human rights ideals and
humiliation
Conversely, whoever works for the vision of human
rights ruling the global village, will react in
profoundly different ways. Such persons and groups will
try to empower people so as to create a world of equal
chances and enabling environments for all. Local or
global tyrants will be regarded as illegitimate and
criticised. Currently this is the reigning vision for the
world, at least from the official point of view of the
world's current elites in the West and many human rights
advocating individuals and organisations around the
world. Human rights have gained the status of moral
correctness that is expressed in a certain 'gut feeling'
that has emerged worldwide during the past two centuries.
It is the gut feeling that it is wrong when masters treat
other humans as lesser beings.
It is not more than about 250 years ago that humankind
started its shift from a hierarchical view on human
beings' dignity to a non-hierarchical concept. South
Africa commenced this process of transition even more
recently; still some white South Africans believe in
white supremacy today. They feel humiliated by
accusations that they are cruel and heartless people;
they point at the fact that black South Africans had a
much better life than their black brothers and sisters in
the rest of Africa. In other words, their gut feeling
does not link a sense of injustice to white supremacy; on
the contrary, they experience themselves as benevolent
patrons.
However, public discourse is currently not dominated
by such vocabulary; on the contrary, buzzwords reign such
as peace, stability, freedom, democracy,
empowerment, and so forth. The problem with this
language, however, is that each of these words has
potentially two meanings, one meaning within the context
of the first vision of the global village, and another
meaning within the concept of the second vision. These
buzzwords can be understood by tyrants as calls for
securing their grip on their underlings, they may want
the freedom for their interest groups to highjack
a pseudo-democratic system so as to provide stability,
peace, and empowerment to precisely their
constituency. Human rights advocates, on the other hand,
understand the very same buzzwords as calls to extend the
promises they entail to all humankind, and not only to
some elites. In short, words are treacherous, what counts
are deeds; only deeds show the actual scope of justice
such words are aimed at.
Feelings of humiliation emerge in the hotbed of this
struggle between two visions of the global village
and its sub-units. Underlings feel humiliated by
oppressors, yet, even more by people who lie to them and
raise hopes that they then do not fulfil. The West is at
present in such a position. The West broadcasts the
message of human rights while being perceived as
maintaining the opposite reality on the ground. Human
rights are like an invitation to the disadvantaged around
the world to join the West - after all, all humans are
equal - yet, when the poor suitors from far-flung
countries want to move in and get 'married' to the rich,
they are thrown out. Boats filled with people who seek
the promise of 'equality' are turned back, negotiators
who try to reach fair global rules and regulations, are
blocked.
However, not only underlings feel humiliated, also the
rich and powerful feel humiliated. Many in the rich West
are fervently working for human rights and feel deeply
humiliated by suspicions doubting their motives. They
feel that their efforts are ridiculed, minimised,
devalued, humiliated. During my fieldwork in Africa I
carried out more then a hundred interviews with Western
representatives in humanitarian organisations. Many had
entered into this life with very high ideals and felt
deeply hurt, misunderstood and humiliated when being
accused that they merely wanted the fun and excitement of
their work and abuse others' suffering for their own
gains. Some had descended into cynicism and
disillusionment and seemed to even feel ashamed of ever
having had ideals. They felt squeezed between superiors
who sometimes did not live the ideals they officially
stood for and recipients of aid who did not truly
appreciate their efforts. Maren (1997) describes similar
dynamics.
However, there is also another group. It includes
those who focus primarily on their efforts to alleviate
the situation and tend to be blind to injustices they
indeed may cause. Coleman (2000) describes the propensity
of the powerful to be blind with respect to the feelings
of humiliation they cause in underlings and that very
well may reach boiling points. This 'humiliated fury'
(Scheff 1997, p.11) may accumulate in those with lesser
power, a humiliated fury that very well may explode,
especially when there is 'nothing to lose' anymore, when
a human life may not count much anymore, even not one's
own.
Regional conflicts are but mirrors of the larger
picture. Human rights ideals intensify feelings of
humiliation, because any deprivation or inequality that
was legitimate before - as God's will or nature's order -
is now illegitimate. It is important to realise that
these heightened feelings of humiliation have profound
effects on people. Those who preach human rights better
become more aware that they intensify feelings of
humiliation - what I would call the 'nuclear bomb of
feelings' - when they overlook the fact that reality does
not follow ideals. Feelings of humiliation emerging
around the world can therefore, ironical as it may sound,
be interpreted as a success of human rights teachings,
because feelings of humiliation are sharpened
particularly in contexts where ideals are created that do
not correspond to reality. In short, when ideals arrive
and reality does not follow, there is a problem.
Humiliation and
humility
One may discuss the reasons for why human rights were
able to permeate the minds and souls of so many people
around the world. Human rights give a voice to those at
the bottom of the pyramid of power and to their
advocates. Insofar they are nothing new. Human history
has always seen revolts by underlings who yearned for a
better life. What is special with human rights is that
they do not only preach the 'death of the king', but also
the 'death of oppressive hierarchy' altogether. Formerly,
underlings used to topple elites only to replace them and
keep hierarchy in place. Rhetoric of equality would be
maintained by revolutionaries and 'freedom fighters' only
until they had grabbed the rulers' seats. This was then
the end of equality. This may even be the 'natural'
course of revolutions if nothing else intervenes. Even
the Russian revolution ended this way.
However, this course is hampered nowadays by
globalisation, or better, by technology that makes such
hypocrisy difficult to carry out. The same technology
that contributed to the process of globalisation, the
technology of mobility and communication, has brought
people closer to each other. It shrank distances on the
globe and became the vehicle for a continuous revolution.
For example: a group of Afghan women went out with
cameras hidden under their burkhas; they took pictures
and published them on the Internet. American women and
human rights advocates became aware of this site. They
forged a coalition and contributed with their
resources.
The underlings around the world should be lifted up,
on one side, and masters learn humility on the other. To
use traffic as a metaphor: there should be traffic lights
that give the right to pass to large and small vehicles
alike. Former underlings with their small vehicles should
be encouraged to pass when the light is green, they
should not be humiliated by being told that they are not
worth being let through. On the other side, masters
should be taught to respect red lights and not regard
them as humiliation. In other words, also those with
large vehicles have to stop when the light turns red, in
a new spirit of humility, and wait like everybody else.
This learning process is important for everybody, it
cross-cuts many other fault lines.
To give an example, although many Somalis perceive
themselves as victims, many among them have still to
learn humility. Somalia has never been a proper part of
any empire that deserved the name, probably because
Somali nomads are known to be proud, stubborn, unruly and
fickle. Their pastoral democracy (Lewis, 1961) was built
on equality, but it did not provide a strong hierarchical
ranking order that a conqueror could easily use for his
own goals. In other words, Somalis are difficult to
humiliate; they are too proud. Somalis are proud - for
example, the fact that they did not bow to colonisation
in the same way as others did in Africa. Yet, there is a
dark side to that, namely that some Somalis may not
always know enough about the humility that is necessary
for effective cooperation. Local warlord-ism, for
example, undermines attempts to build functioning
'traffic rules' that protect every citizen. Afghanistan
is another example; many mountainous or scarce regions
preserved a degree of pristine pride that made them
difficult to subjugate for former empires. However, this
also makes them difficult to integrate into a new world
system where humility is important. Resisting humiliation
is not everything, learning humility is equally
important.
Reactive devaluation and the
task for a third party
One aspect of this humility could be to accept help.
People, who live in regions of protracted conflict and
are caught in continuous cycles of violence, are not
necessarily at their best with regard to balanced
thinking and rational protection of their own interest.
In-group and out-group differentiations alone lead to
serious biases in perception and judgment. This is
compounded by the continuous stress of violent and armed
confrontations, and finally by the burning intensity of
feelings of humiliation. Barriers to conflict resolution
will become insurmountable merely because of
psychological limitations suffered by the involved
parties. Ross & Ward (1995) worked intensively on
such barriers, for example on reactive devaluation
(Ross, 1995). Reactive devaluation means that any
proposition for compromise that is put forward by an
adversary is rejected, regardless of its contents; while
the own group's arguments are regarded by its members
with sympathy, just because they come from the own group.
Common ground that could serve as a platform for a
solution of the conflict is systematically underestimated
under such circumstances and possible betterments of the
situation not grasped.
Parents may observe this in their children when they
have a fight. Children may appear to be quite calm and
grown up at times, however, under pressure, in a fight,
they may regress and act suddenly very childlike. Apt
parents recognise this and help their children out
without belittling them. Cooling strategies will restore
a more adult posture in children. Yet, not only children
need such help; also adults may benefit from it at times.
And this is where the third party has to step in.
The first task for third parties would be to extend
empathy, compassion and understanding to all members of
all sub-groups and forge alliances between the moderates
on all side. The characteristic of moderates is that they
are more capable of rising above the level of opposing
sub-groups and perceive all members as part of a larger
in-group. One example for a moderate is Nelson Mandela.
He succeeded in transforming his feelings of humiliation
after 27 years of prison, into a constructive
contribution to social and societal change. He distanced
himself from his own urge for revenge.
This inner distancing from the urge for revenge is a
sign of personal strength and great maturity. It is this
very maturation that the world has to bring about in all
people who are caught up in feelings of humiliation and
drawn towards violent retaliating acts, if it wants to
become a global village with an intact social
fabric that is the precondition for mental health. Third
parties are needed to bring about this distancing step.
Third parties, or bystanders, as described by Staub
(1989), are in fact all mature and moderate forces in the
global community of human beings. They should become
active and facilitate constructive social change towards
a global village based on human rights. Extremists
are those who are most caught in humiliation, both as
feelings and retaliating acts, and they deepen the rifts
of hatred instead of healing humiliation.
Moderates of all camps and third parties have to curb
extremism and invite their representatives back into the
camp of moderation, of patient change, and of long-term
solutions. Mature, moderate, responsible people are
called upon to invite young, intelligent people to follow
the example of a Nelson Mandela, and not follow promoters
of terror who at some point have translated empathy with
suffering into an urge to retaliate with violence.
Moderation in daily
life
How could a reader of this journal, for example a
worker in an area of armed conflict, meet a situation in
which moderation is indicated? And how could he or she
accomplish that in practice? During my time in Egypt I
frequently witnessed the following scene: an accident
happens in the street in the middle of overcrowded Cairo.
The two male drivers get out of their cars and look
angrily at the damage. They build up anger and
subsequently shout and jump at each other's necks: they
scream, they pull each other at their cloths, they even
hit each other. Around this scene, in the street, in
coffee houses, in shops, people's attention is caught.
The expressions on people's faces change and very fast
reach a common expression of seriousness, of urgency, and
of respect and involvement. About ten to twenty men,
preferably young and strong ones, slowly leave whatever
they were just doing and come to the place of the scene.
They separate in two groups of about five to ten men
each. Each group of ten men assumes responsibility for
one of the opponents. Each opponent is held back and
talked to by his 'party'. He is held back sufficiently so
that he cannot really hit and hurt his opponent any more,
but he is on the other hand not held back too much, so
that he still can shout and scream and make brief attack
trials. (Therefore it needs strong men as actors, since a
man in rage can be quite overwhelming.) At the same time
each opponent is talked to in a very special manner. His
'facilitators' speak calmly and with a high degree of
respect to him. They show him that they are fully aware
of the urgency of any situation which forces a man to go
out of his way in such a dramatic manner. They try to
understand the nature of the conflict. This can take up
various amounts of time depending on the nature of the
conflict; longer time in more complicated cases than a
car accident. The 'facilitators' propose various
compromises designed to resolve the conflict. At the same
time they don't overestimate the rational side of the
conflict, they constantly grant respect to the fact that
the opponents are psychologically overburdened by the
conflict. After about ten to fifteen minutes the
opponents' rage loses thrust; they agree on a compromise
in cases where this is appropriate. If necessary, some
facilitators promise to act as witnesses and/or enforcers
of the compromises. The conflict is over; the opponents
leave; the facilitators go back to their previous
occupation; as much as they stayed calm during the
conflict, they do not find it necessary to be excited
over it afterwards; calming conflicts is but routine.
This story shows that moderation may at times be best
provided by third parties who are not involved in the
conflict and who are committed to safeguarding social
cohesion in a respectful manner and without humiliating
any participant. The involved opponents' feelings may
often be too hot to be moderate, at least during conflict
peaks. A Mandela is all too often missing. The example
shows furthermore that an overpowering force of moderates
may be needed, something like a ratio of twenty to two,
twenty 'moderates' to two angry opponents. Yet, sometimes
even a twenty-to-two ratio may not even be sufficient,
especially when opponents were allowed to become
extremist leaders of political movements. Armed conflicts
are usually embedded within an angry atmosphere of 'we'
have to stand united against the 'enemy,' 'we' have to
protect ourselves, and if you do not agree with 'us,' you
are our 'enemy.' This sentence would be interpreted by
extremists as saying, 'we' have to eliminate the 'enemy.'
In contrast, a moderate would say, 'we' protect ourselves
best by working towards a larger 'we' in a constructive
manner so as to include those we call 'enemies' today.
Both interpretations usually compete, whereby the
'hotter' interpretation promises fast redemption for
painful feelings and therefore has a direct appeal, while
moderation is much more difficult to 'sell' and therefore
needs the twenty-to-two support to gain weight and
credibility.
Workers, who wish to promote moderation in a situation
that has been taken over by extremists and their
polarizing language, have to build positions in the
spirit of the twenty-to-two ratio. This means gathering
as many allies as possible from the global third party,
the international community. Together they can give
weight to moderate positions, help to diminish extremist
language, and forge alliances of moderates across all
opposing camps. The coming into being of the global
village facilitates this process, since it becomes
increasingly apparent that social fires, wherever they
burn, may inflame the whole global village. Local
workers could also start collecting and broadcasting all
moderate proverbs, traditions, and ancient wisdom that
the opponents' own cultures provide.
And finally, promoting moderation means continuously
emphasising the children's future, a future that usually
none of any warring party wishes to be bloody and
violent.
Footnotes
(1) During my research I carried out 216 qualitative
interviews, addressing Somalia, Rwanda and Burundi and
their history of genocidal killings. Trust was built and
authentic encounters were sought, inscribed in
non-humiliating relationships that safeguarded
everybody's dignity. The interlocutors were invited to
become "co-researchers" in a reflective dialogue with the
researcher, involving not only the interviewee and the
researcher but also various scholars whose ideas were
introduced into the dialogue.
(2) There is a large body of literature that addresses
the notion of humiliation as part of shame, or trauma, or
aggression. However, there exists only a very limited
amount on the notion of humiliation as differentiated
from other concepts. Among this literature is Margalit
(1996), Miller (1993); Scheff (1990); Steinberg (1991),
and Volkan (1997), as well as special issues on
humiliation by two journals, the Journal of Primary
Prevention in 1991, and in 1997 the journal Social
Research.
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Lewis, Ioan M. (1961). A pastoral democracy: A
study of pastoralism and politics among the Northern
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_____________________________________________
Edna Adan is the former wife of the late President of
"Somaliland," Mohammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, Evelin Gerda
Lindner interviewed her on 3rd December 1998 in Hargeisa,
Somaliland. She had a message to the global
village: 'The international community is usually the
one who encourages dictators and the oppressors to
progress. Without mentioning any names, you have
government dictators who have millions and billions of
dollars in banks. Those billions of dollars were not
generated through a salary that they earned or a reward
that they were given by the people they were heading.
Those billions came from the money that belongs to the
people, that was given by the international community.
The international community should act intelligently, and
fairly and honestly and not feed, not allow oppressors,
to accumulate so much of the people's money. They should
not give them arms, they should not give them money and
they should not help them to remain in the power. Because
it is the international world that maintains dictators in
power. The bombs that were being thrown on my people in
Hargeisa in Somaliland, were not manufactured by Siad
Barre. They came from all corners of the world; they were
American, Pakistani, Egyptian, Chinese, Russian,
Czechoslovak, Yugoslav - any body who made arms, who made
tanks, who made ammunition sold it or gave it to Siad
Barre, to use against his people. So, where was the
international world when that was being used against the
weak? It should have said 'no,' it should have stopped
the inflow of arms to Somalia in that time. It should
have prevented the slaughter of the civilians'.
Edna Adan concluded that an international community
with double standards is humiliating: 'I think the
international world has different standards. It preaches
human rights, and fairness and so on, in literature! In
Europe! But then when that humiliation, and that
aggression, and that hurt, has taken place in a poor,
remote, developing country like Somaliland, no one wants
to be bothered, let them stew in their own juice! And
these are divided standards, and unfair standards ... It
is a humiliation! So, the international community is to
blame and I hope you have very strong cupboards in which
you can lock up your conscience! Because all the
civilians who died here died from bombs that were
manufactured by people in the developed countries'.
______________________________________________
©
TFF & the author 2002
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